I would say mech bays in the stockings would have been perfect. What are we supposed to do with all these c-bills?

There was lots of MC given away from the holiday dailies, holiday gift and the bags. If you already spent all that, get some 'mechbays for money. They are still at 50% off. Even with the smallest pack they come in below 90 cents a piece. If you got some MC when there was a 30% bonus they would come even cheaper. Don't expect EVERYTHING for free.

if PGI has any brain left, they should stop doing QP and especially FW events, and just stay doing normal achievement events collectable either in QP or FW.
For reference look at the ghost town MWO will be when the stocking event stops.

Lol! I guess I went all no life to get those 200 stocking stuffers in time for no reason.

Not true, Eternal Claymore. First off, if we had not been given this time extension, then you have succeeded in finishing what you originally intended within the time limit... Congratulations! Second off, this extension means you can reach out and get some more... You should get to that already.

Heck, as of when I'm posting this, it has thankfully been at least 12 hours since when I got my Final (325 earned, of 325 that I could possibly get) Stocking Stuffer. At least now I can calm down and relax a little, all while helping to keep the queues loaded with players. See you out there, perhaps?

sub2000, on 04 January 2018 - 12:49 AM, said:

if PGI has any brain left, they should stop doing QP and especially FW events, and just stay doing normal achievement events collectable either in QP or FW.
For reference look at the ghost town MWO will be when the stocking event stops.

Sorry, sub2000, but PGI's New Events System is currently unable to handle ignoring the difference between Quick Play and Faction Warfare (CW/FW/FP)... Expect changes to that situation 'Soon'TM, if ever...

Until then, let's hope that PGI fixes Faction Warfare's Invasion Match Score handling. That should be more easy to do, as all they need to change is to make the server not dock Match Score until you're no longer able to launch a Mech on to the BattleField anymore during a given Match. Once you are completely quote-unquote "Dead", however, then they can take off about 20% of your Match Score earnings, but they should NOT touch it before that. Doing that particular fix will put an end to "Gaming of the Match Score systems" where Pilots sacrifice their Teammates in order to hide and keep their first or second Mech alive for maximum Match Score earnings. Pilots should be able to feel unrestricted on how they use their Mechs as needed during a Match, without this insanity of a fear of being penalized because they lost part of their Drop Deck. Unless this is fixed, that toxic behavior will continue to pervade and damage the very atmosphere of Faction Warfare's Invasion Matches.

Heck, changes made there could even be potentially adapted in the future for Scouting and Quick Play. It seems like sometimes the Match Score earnings there don't seem to properly reflect the effort given. At least they could reduce the percentage of Match Score lost for dying, if nothing else.

By the way, MWO won't outrightly become a 'ghost town' when this Event is done. There are people who can only play seasonally, and many are going to have things come along that reduce their time to be on MWO. The only thing that could kill MWO completely would be a major error from PGI that caused everyone to want to get up and leave, or the online player count dropped below 120... I think that's something I would rather not think about, however.

~Mr. D. V. "Dailys, Extensions, Endings... I just hope I can recharge before the Next Event!!!" Devnull

Not all of us. I'm still finding the right choices for Engines on some Mech designs, but I've got some in my WareHouse on Standby as well. However, all my Mechs can be called from the bays at any time, even ones I've purchased but not configured yet.

Well, here I am again, 4.5 hours later, as I start typing this post... To me, it's a big surprise that nobody has posted since my last...

Anyway, I've just unpacked 325 Stocking Stuffers and picked my Grand Pick-A-Prize Mech... If the servers crash when I next log on about 3 hours from when I'm posting this, I apologize to everyone in the MWO Community. It will mean receiving 326 items to my account all at once was way too much for the Rewards System to handle.

At this time, I can more-or-less consider the "2017-2018 Stocking Stuffer 3" Holiday Event to be 'Fully Completed' for myself, as I sit back and wonder what the next two weeks are going to be like. My thanks to PGI to finally be able to finish my first one in the three that I have been here for. I am totally looking forward to the "2018-2019 Stocking Stuffer 4" Holiday Event to be just as good as -- or perhaps better than -- how this one turned out at the end. However, I do hope that PGI's Staff manages to put a proper Fix on the Faction Warfare Invasion Mode Match Score handling before the next CW/FW/FP-based Event rolls around. Further, Pick-A-Prize Rewards are ALWAYS appreciated, so I hope to see more of those as well.

Now, for some quick totals... at least, the ones I find personally note-worthy...

10 Days of Active Premium Time
(Ah nuts... Looks like I'm going to be putting in a lot of time, but I've got to watch my Sleep Cycling... Enjoy the laugh at my expense???)

7 Christmas Bell WarHorns
(SWEET!!! THE BELLS WILL RING!!! THAT SOUND IS AWESOME!!!)

1 Krampus
(I'm surprised that I got this again. I'll have to find a Mech that it fits with. Hmm.......)

1 MWO Mug
(I'm very glad that these are still given with this type of Event. Being as they can't be purchased for (MC) anymore, at least as far as I know, they're rather valuable in sentimental terms.)

...and a whole load of other items that I'm sure not all of the rest of you would consider as significant. Well, that, and I'm really not in a state of mind (really, my brain might break) to try and add all those tiny totals up. But, I'll have plenty to work with after this, I think. By the way, I'm NOT trying to go around gloating, so I apologize to anyone that feels this way. I'm just really happy to have earned certain hard-to-get things, particularly a good number of those Christmas Bell WarHorns.

Okay, 5 hours now since my last post as I'm finishing this up. I got distracted a couple of times while typing this, otherwise I would probably be finished long since. Dang, Real Life can pull you away at the weirdest times... Oh well, I'll catch you all later, probably at the Next Event!

(p.s.: I'm still glad I could award the "2017-2018 Stocking Stuffer 3" Holiday Event a Review Rating of 10.0/10 in the End. That's exactly how these Holiday Events should always be, without a single light failing to work or tree fallen over. Now to look forward to the 2018 Year here on MWO...)

Thank you for the extended event and sales, PGI! Got a mech, sold, bought two Zeus to complete my ZEU line (love this light mech :steiner_wink: )

However, this event was extremely exhausting, at least for me. Even with help of bonus loot bags. Not sure i will touch the game until Solaris update. But maybe it is just the game, not event effect.

P.S. Please, please, please do an indoors gamedesing meeting/roundtable/brainstorm after Solaris. CW, consumables, other features... Think of what can be improved, don't be afraid to change. Solaris is cool idea, but it is just a delay. Game as it is will not survive another fruitless year.

Not all of us. I'm still finding the right choices for Engines on some Mech designs, but I've got some in my WareHouse on Standby as well. However, all my Mechs can be called from the bays at any time, even ones I've purchased but not configured yet.

~D. V. "I'm not so cheapskate, unlike you two..." Devnull

If you ever took out an engine from one mech to install it on another, you're just as much a cheapskate.

The bulk of my C-Bill income goes into getting more mechs purchased and kitted out (which sometimes indeed means buying another engine). Having 30-40 mechs ready to drop at any time is perfectly sufficient for me, notlike I could play 100+ simultaneous matches anyway..

Or you could do what many of us did: build a medium brawler and run it in Scouting for MUCH easier bag farming.

I can easily queue for QP, but not for FP. Even if there is a call for arms and I answer it, it just seems to put me in a queue with nothing happening for longer than my patience holds. LFG doesn't specify what you actually want to do, so you could be invited for clan invasion, when you want to do IS scouting.

So, where are those extra stockings for the QP crowd? Cap the bags at 325 or 350 total, I don't care, but it would be a motivation to actually play some games in the next days for me.

LFG doesn't specify what you actually want to do, so you could be invited for clan invasion, when you want to do IS scouting.

Running off on a tangent here, but this is what I think the biggest problem with the game is: The sh!t LFG system. I mean, the thing already exists, how hard is it to let people put a tag on what they're looking for? There are only six games you can Q for in the whole game: QP solo or group, FP scout or invasion (x2 for clan/IS). Just make it a selection and it'll help ridiculously. How about when you have a group make a spot they can give you server information for Teamspeak or whatever they're running?

It's not rocket science and it would help immensely. Also need a way to look at loadouts so people can discuss while they wait and you can tell someone who you're thinking about that their LRM Timberwolf is ok if they drop the fourth LRM20 and bring some lasers.

EVERYTHING gets easier with a real "lobby". Right now we have nothing of the sort. If our default window when we entered the game was a general chat lobby with a big window with historical chat in it and from there we entered chat rooms for individual modes (of the six above) or went to the mechlab while retaining the chat window...we'd actually have a sense of community. Right now we really don't and it's suffocating the game. Not only the lack of community but just the general need to be able to communicate...it's supposed to be a group based team shooter but nothing at all about the game...NOTHING...supports any level of decent communication.

Just the simple change above shoves people into an ongoing discussion at all times and it brings them closer together just by being there.

Think about WoW (since most people have played at some point)...there's ALWAYS a chat window open. You can manage which chats show up easily in it and their colors are different. You can whisper to someone simply by typing /t...why can't we do this in MWO? It's ridiculously simple compared to coding for new weapons or graphics updates on a giant 3D game or making new maps etc. We've literally had things like this online for decades, it's not rocket science and PGI could practically buy an off-the-shelf piece of software to integrate that was light years better. FFS this community probably has people who would write the code for free or damn close to it.

Pretty please PGI?

Hey, do you think that if we spammed the forums once a week with a "can we have nice chat lobbies and LFG?" post we'd get some traction?

Alright, just dropping by again... I was a little arrogant with my earlier post, assuming things like I did... GG me...

Anywho, just did the unpack. It took a while, but ALL 326 items redeemed, or at least appeared to. I should have paid better attention, but here's as many totals as I was able to gather after scrolling through the list, also using a calculator to handle differences in my Profile page...

10 Days Act. Prem. Time (Now Ticking... I wish there was a "Pause" button!!!)
16800 GXP(General XP) (Hmm... 21 Skill Points there... Anybody being negative about GXP might want to rethink their position...)
1470 (MC) (Makes up for the Mech Bays that I got before opening all of this!!!)
10125000 (C-Bills) (Okay, not totally in the basement now, but it's a long road back upward...)
7 Christmas Bell WarHorns (YES!!! The bells toll, and they shall ring loudly!!!)
1 Krampus (Good to get another... Now I wonder where the Hanging Santa Hat is?)
1 MWO Mug (Is that Hot Chocolate or Coffee in there? I would like to think the first, not the second.)
25 Other Cockpit Items (I'm going to enjoy decking out some Cockpits.)
48 Various (MC) Consumables (Good for a Rainy Day, I guess?)
1 Grand Prize Mech with Bay (You'll all see this once I have it set up the way I want... Not before.)

...and now I've got to get back to the battlefield... A.P.T. ticking isn't a funny thing when you might have needed it to wait... At least I know I'll have something interesting to utilize.

Thank you for the scaled match score bonus loot bags in Faction Play and thank you for extending this event. I know a lot of players were away from home over the holidays, hopefully this gives them time to collect all their bonus baggies. Also, a special thank you for the December 27th log in and play one game give away; it was lovely, easy and generous.

Looking forward to the next Tournament Supporter pack and a special thanks for all the extra war horns and booty from the 2017 edition.